Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow (25 page)

Multifaceted crystal goblets tinkled as our guests toasted the success thus far of the War of Independence. I shuddered and glanced down the length of the table at the celebrants, barely recognizing some of the women, for they looked as though they were attired for a masquerade ball rather than a state dinner at the palace. When it came to women’s fashion I had set the mode for years; yet since his arrival in Paris two years earlier, this eccentric “Monsieur Frankleen,” with his shaggy gray hair and twinkling eyes, had so captivated the hostesses of the capital that in due time they had endeavored to emulate his appearance. I found myself trying not to stare at an unseemly number of unpowdered heads, some of which were crowned with only slightly more elegant versions of the diplomat’s ridiculous beaver hat. Germaine Necker, the outspoken young daughter of our Finance Minister, looked particularly absurd. Not only was a fur chapeau plunged down over her rather masculine-looking head, but her gown had been constructed to resemble the infant republic’s flag, a riot of red and white horizontal stripes set off at her breast by a blue field that was dominated by a circle of stars, representing each of the new states in the American union.

Now I watched this—this septuagenarian satyr ogling the ample décolleté of the maréchale de Millepied, a woman easily one fourth his age, and yet the maréchale, fully aware she was being admired, simpered and giggled, and adjusted her position to afford the envoy a better view as everyone seated within earshot peppered the American diplomat with questions about his savage land across the sea.

“Not nearly as
‘sauvage’
as you French imagine it,” Mr. Franklin chuckled. “We rarely cover ourselves in animal skins,” he said, mischievously tapping his unusual chapeau, “and I have seen more feather headdresses at this table than in an entire lifetime in America.” He conceded that the women of Baltimore and Boston, Philadelphia and New York, did not dress quite so extravagantly as the Parisians, practicality being more prized in a lady’s character than frivolity. Evidently they were more religious as well.

To the silly comtesse d’Artois, he replied, “Yes, Madame, we have Catholics in America, although I myself belong to the Society of Friends, a peace-loving Quaker.” He was then challenged to reconcile his nonviolent beliefs to his advocacy of revolution, before surprising the gathering by informing us that it was the intention of the American founding fathers, as he called them, for their newborn United States to champion freedom of religion: to wit, a man’s beliefs would not restrict his access to universities or employment. “It is also our goal for every property-holding man, no matter how much land he owns and no matter the circumstances of his birth, to have a vote in who will represent him in all the governing bodies that affect his life, from alderman to the Continental Congress.”

The duc d’Orléans and his son, the duc de Chartres, leaned forward to listen more intently. I found the entire discussion shocking. The Orléans
famille
were troublemakers with broad popularity in the capital and equally deep coffers. I looked down
the table, trying to catch Louis’s eye, but he was deep in conversation with Mr. Deane. I wondered what the king made of all of this talk of revolution and rebellion. And what of Louis’s slippery cousins? When the American envoy enumerated the glorious political reforms that his new United States would embrace, I despaired of the dangerous notions they inspired in Chartres and Orléans.

I could not understand my countrymen and -women’s enthusiasm for Mr. Franklin’s new nation, nor comprehend the antiroyalist sentiment—nay, zeal—that his revolution inspired in even the most aristocratic of bosoms, particularly while my family in Austria still despaired of our aid, even as the King of Prussia threatened to invade their borders in retaliation for Joseph’s incursion into Bavaria. Nor could I imagine decking myself out like Mademoiselle Necker in
la mode Américaine
. But before the week was over, I summoned Rose Bertin to Versailles to design a few poufs commemorating our new alliance and, in my sole concession to the cult of “le
très sage
Sieur Frankleen,” I chose to cease powdering my hair. Monsieur Léonard was aghast at my
petite révolte
.

On April 19, as I was composing a letter to Maman, I became overwhelmed by a sickly stench in my study. I glanced about, surveying the lush arrangements of lilies, roses, irises, and tuberoses that filled the room. The last, a flower with an exceptionally heady aroma, had the tendency to turn as it began to die. But the long-stemmed bloom looked as fresh as ever. I lowered my nose to the little vase of violets and lilies of the valley, nature’s most delicately scented blossoms, and drew away, nearly wretching with nausea.

On the morning of May 5, my
dame d’atours
arrived with the gazette containing the inventory of my wardrobe and handed me
the pin with which I marked my selections for the day. I made my choices and my accessories were delivered to me as usual in an osier basket covered with a fresh length of scented green baize. But the pale blue satin slippers pinched my toes. The measurements had always been infallible. I questioned my
dame d’atours:
Had a new cobbler been employed? She shook her head.

“These shoes were made only weeks ago,
Votre Majesté
.”

I wore a new pair nearly every day. Never before had they been too snug. I ordered another pair to be brought to me, but those were too tight as well. So I asked my
dame d’atours
to bring back the gazette and I would select a different ensemble entirely. Perhaps there was something wrong with the blue satin. I decided to wear buttercup yellow instead; then rose, then olive, and I soon found myself surrounded by a haphazard heap of shoes fashioned of silk, brocade, and satin, elaborately embellished, or barely unadorned—and yet every one of them was ever so slightly too small, just enough to be horridly uncomfortable if I wore them for more than a few moments at a time.

My attendants had been exchanging glances all morning. Finally, dear Gabrielle, the comtesse de Polignac—and shame on the comte de Mercy for trying to turn me against her, as I found her no more grasping than any other courtier at Versailles—inquired sweetly whether I had noticed any other changes in my body.

Générale Krottendorf had arrived earlier than usual on March 3, but she had not revisited me since. Tears sprang to my eyes. My heart’s pace quickened. Was it possible? Still, I had been fooled before. My courses had never been reliable. Not only that, my belly would become dreadfully upset whenever I grew anxious about something, and Maman’s perpetual haranguing over the situation in Bavaria was a source of undue consternation. If I was experiencing yet another false alarm, it would be better to remain silent. Best not to risk rumors.

By the thirty-first of July, not only had the Générale continued to remain elusive, but there were other signs that confirmed my certainty. I vomited most mornings, no matter how little I ate. Even my usual
petits déjeuners
of dry toast made me queasy. Every odor and aroma seemed ten times more pungent. I ceased wearing some of my
eaux perçantes
because the fragrances were too powerful for me to bear. As dauphine I had disdained the use of stays, although the grandeur of my wardrobe as queen all but mandated them, and I had been compelled to succumb to their torments. Yet now I found my corsets more detestable than ever for it was clear, at least to me, from studying myself every day in a tall glass, that at long last there was something more considerable to constrict. Louis never dared to explore my body whenever we performed our marital duty, but had he ever thought to touch my breasts, I would have complained that they were now tender and sensitive.

But most obvious of all, it had come—“the quickening,” as the duchesse de Chartres and the comtesse de Polignac (my pair of trusted mamans) called it: that inexpressible, indefinable moment of joy when an expectant mother first feels the stirrings of life inside her belly.

In those early weeks it had been nearly impossible to maintain my secret, but I had so dreaded a miscarriage I had not even told my mother the news. Not before I announced it to the one person who had most to gain. Tipsy with excitement as I glided through the corridors, I could scarcely tamp down my enthusiasm, but I nearly had to hold my breath; catching the attention of the usual throng gathered in the halls and State Rooms might begin a roundelay of murmurs and whispers, and I wished to conceal the sense that something extraordinary was about to take place.

At the door to the king’s private apartments, I requested my attendants to quit me, and they receded, retreating in opulent,
beribboned bubbles of cerise, aqua, and apple-green taffeta, satin, and moiré.

I found Louis in his library, alone, squinting over a sheaf of documents. An atlas lay on the desk beside him, its red Morocco binding open to a map of North America. As he looked up, startled by the intrusion, I feigned a terribly incommoded expression and, striking an attitude, declared petulantly, “I have come, Sire, to complain about one of your subjects, who has had the audacity to kick me in the belly.”

It took him a moment or two to realize what I had said. And then, as the expression in his eyes transformed itself from annoyance to discovery to unabashed elation, and his small full lips broadened into a toothy smile, followed by an exuberant yelp, I broke my pose and began to laugh and cry at the same time. He came around from behind the desk to sweep me into his arms, but then began to draw back, fearful I would crack, like a Meissenware shepherdess, if he handled me too boldly. “
Ma chère Toinette! Est-ce tellement vrai?
After we have waited so long? Can it really be true?” Tears coursed down his broad cheeks. He clasped my hands in his and brought them to his moist lips, smothering them with
petits bisous
. After so many years as man and wife I still marveled at how tiny my hands looked inside of his, as he caressed the insides of my wrists with his thumbs.

I slipped my arms about his prodigious waist and pressed my head to his chest, staining his yellow brocaded waistcoat with my tears of exultation and relief. As my husband held me in his embrace I could feel his emotion in the rise and fall of his chest against my bosom. “So, you are to be a papa!” I exclaimed, when we finally released our arms. “How does it feel?”

He puffed out his already ample chest, preening like a peacock. “This is the happiest day of my life,” he assured me. “More so than the day we wed, for I did not know you then.” He grabbed me and kissed me full on the mouth, taking my breath away.

“Louis, I give you my solemn pledge,” I whispered, as our lips parted, “and I will say the same to Monsieur Lassone and to Maman, that as it appears God has finally granted me the grace I have so long desired, I will henceforth live otherwise than I have done till now. I will live as a mother. To nourish our son and give time to his education will be my chief pleasures from now on.”

I am not sure he took me at my word, for I had not been terribly adept at maintaining my previous promises to curtail my gaming and monitor the expenses of my wardrobe more closely. But how could I, when Mademoiselle Bertin never itemized her invoices? And the previous year, the comte d’Artois had all but goaded me into wagering against his contention that he could build a château in three months’ time on the property he had purchased from the prince de Chimay in the Bois de Boulogne. He had built Bagatelle in only sixty-three days and I had lost a fortune. But everything would be different from now on. With the stirring of life within me, I looked forward to a new leaf.

Louis took me by the hand and led me toward the paneled door. “We must announce the news to the court!”

“No,” I said, pulling him up short, and placing my finger on his lips. “Let us wait a few days; it will give us the upper hand and allow us the time to plan the appropriate pageantry.” We were still hand in hand when we exited the king’s private apartments, unsurprised to find a crowd gathered outside the doors, although they jumped back like fleas, embarrassed to have been caught eavesdropping. How we frustrated the gossips by supplying only a pair of enigmatic expressions!

That Sunday a Te Deum was sung at Mass, not only in the chapel at Versailles but at all the churches in the capital. The reason became apparent on the following day, August 4, when Louis and I announced to the court that the queen was with child.

Elation and jubilation spread from the corridors of Versailles across France—to Bretagne and Bordeaux, to Tours and Toulouse,
Champagne and Strasbourg and across the border over the Hapsburg territories of Belgium and the disputed Bavaria, across the German duchies; and, thanks to my effulgent letter to Maman, onto her escritoire at Schönbrunn.

In a gesture intended to honor his family for the abbé Vermond’s years of service to me, we selected his brother to be my
accoucheur
.
Amid my old retainer’s other duties, the humble and appreciative cleric, ever a comforting presence amid an ocean of doubters and detractors, would often deliver my correspondence when he came to read to me. But that day, when I untied the green ribbon that bound the notes and letters, a scrap of paper floated to the floor. He stooped to retrieve it, gave a cursory glance, and, glowering, shoved it into a deep pocket of his black soutane.